


St. George

by shir_oh_no



Series: Shance Art AU [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shir_oh_no/pseuds/shir_oh_no
Summary: Shiro has a nightmare for the first time Lance is there to witness it





	St. George

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly these aren't being posted in any sort of timeline, but this one takes place after maybe a month of Shiro and Lance dating?

Lance jolted awake, unsure at first what had disturbed him from his sleep. He blinked sleepily and shook his head, increasingly becoming aware of his surroundings. He heard a soft groan coming from his right, and turned to look at what was happening.

Shiro was sweating, his eyes clenched and brows furrowed. His mechanical hand was flexing, opening and closing tightly. His lips were moving, too fast for Lance’s sleep-addled brain to comprehend, but occasional groans and panicked “no”s breaking through the silence. He was having a nightmare.

Lance didn’t know what to do. Should he wake him? Or would that just upset him further? Maybe he should go get Matt. Shiro’s roommate _had_ to know what to do in this kind of situation.

While Lance was thinking about what to do, he didn’t notice Shiro’s movements becoming sharper, his prosthetic moving more in sporadic movements.

“Ulaz!” Shiro cried out, bolting upright in bed, his eyes opening wide. Lance could see the fear in them, darting around the dark room as if looking for something lost. “Please, no!” Shiro began to cry, fat tears falling onto his cheeks.

“Shiro?” Lance asked, his voice soft.

Shiro didn’t hear him, instead pushing the younger man out of the way in his haste to free himself from the blankets and escape the bed. He pushed Lance back down roughly, his head hitting the pillows with a loud pounding noise.

Shiro immediately dropped to the floor, looking around the room frantically. “Ulaz, please don’t be gone,” he whispered into the darkness, his voice cracking. A heartbeat passed, and then Shiro screamed, clutching his metal arm to his chest.

Lance let out a sob, watching his boyfriend relive the worst moment of his life but unable to help. He heard footsteps running down the hall, and Matt flung the door open. “Shiro!”

Matt crossed the room and crouched down next to Shiro, wrapping the larger man in his arms. “It okay, you’re safe now, it’s not real,” He rocked back and forth as much as he could, Shiro’s heartbreaking sobs quieting with every passing second. “You’re okay, Shiro, we’ve got you.” Matt waved one hand at Lance, encouraging him to join them.

Lance slid off the bed, flicking on the light on the nightstand, and sat on the other side of Shiro, reaching out to run his fingers through Shiro’s hair. “We’ve got you Shiro,” he soothed, trying to keep his panic from making his voice shake.

Shiro blinked at Matt, focus returning to his eyes. “Matt?”

“Yeah, I’ve got you. Lance is here, too.”

Shiro turned his head and fixed his gaze on Lance. “Lance?”

“Hey babe,” Lance gave his boyfriend a watery smile.

Shiro tried to return it, but failed. He turned his head back to Matt, blinking at the other man. “Paint?”

Matt nodded, “Hey, Lance?” Lance made eye contact with Matt upon hearing his name. “Could you go over to Shiro’s paints and pick up the tube of light purple?”

Lance hesitated, afraid of leaving his boyfriend to go to the other side of the room, but relented, trusting that Shiro’s roommate and best friend knew the best course of action that should be taken.

Lance hurried across the room and rummaged through Shiro’s tidy collection of colors before finding the desired purple. Unlike the rest of the colors in Shiro’s collection, the purple tube was larger than the rest, and the outside of the tube was smeared with paint, where the other bottles and tubes were more or less clean as the day they had been bought.

“Should I grab a paintbrush?”

“No, just bring the paint here.” Lance nodded and returned to Shiro’s side, pressing the paint into his hands and returning his own hand to flit through Shiro’s hair.

Shiro pulled himself away from the two sets of arms trying to comfort him, choosing instead to sit against the wall next to his bed, his bare legs stretched out in front of him. The legs of his boxers were pushed up a little to reveal his scarred thighs. Ignoring the men watching him, he popped off the cap to the paint and squirted some paint into his left hand. He then dipped three metal fingers into the paint and brought them down to his left wrist, dragging them across the skin, leaving three bright purple slashes crossing his skin. Shiro sighed at the color marking his skin, his eyes fluttering closed at the cool paint against his hot skin.

Lance and Matt watched, crossed legged just out of range of Shiro’s bare feet as the artist finger painted purple designs into his bare skin. He decorated his flesh arm with stripes in sets of three, some overlapping each other with every drag of fingers against his skin. Once his arm was covered, he moved onto his thighs, painting them with swirls and dots. When he finally ran out of paint on his left hand, he rubbed both hands together, covering them with purple, and leaned down to place handprints on his shins, smearing them as he straightened back out.

As Lance and Matt watched Shiro paint, Matt quietly explained what was going on to the confused man.

“I don’t know the whole story. He won’t tell me, but I’m sure he’s talked about it with his therapist. He told you about him, right?”

Lance shook his head, “he mentioned that he had a therapist, but didn’t explain much.”

“When Shiro lost his arm and got that brutal scar on his nose, he also lost his best friend in the military, Ulaz. I don’t know all the details, but I know it fucked him up really bad. The nightmares used to happen all the time, but ever since he started therapy, they’ve gone down. Kolivian is an ex-marine himself, and after one of Shiro’s first sessions he gave me a basic rundown of PTSD and how I could help.”

“How?” Lance asked.

“Mostly just how to recognize warning signs of an episode, how to minimize triggers, and he told me to just be there if he needs me to be.”

Lance nodded. “So, what’s with the paint?” he asked, gesturing to Shiro, who was now tracing over the paint on his legs, smearing it where it hadn’t dried down yet.

Matt shrugged. “I’ve never asked. It’s just a coping mechanism that works for him, so I helped him find a non-toxic, washable paint in the shade of purple he wanted.”

“Ulaz wore a bracelet that color. Told me his boyfriend had made it for him back in high school,” Shiro spoke up for the first time all night.

“Hey Shiro, how are you feeling?” Matt asked.

“Tired,” Shiro gave him a soft smile, avoiding Lance’s stare.

“I’m going to go get you a glass of water and you can sleep after you drink it, deal?” Matt pushed himself up off the floor.

Shiro nodded, watching his best friend disappear into the darkness beyond his room.

Lance hesitated, but broke the silence between them. “Shiro?”

Shiro looked down at his legs and sighed. “I know you didn’t sign up for this. I’m really sorry for wasting your time and I swear I’ll be okay if you want to leave now that you’ve seen how fucked up my head is,” he said in a flat voice.

Lance took a shaky breath at Shiro’s words. “What? No!” he gasped, “I don’t want to leave. Yeah, I’m a little bit upset, but that’s entirely because my _boyfriend_ didn’t give me a heads up this could happen and left me afraid and confused.”

Shiro’s shoulders began to shake, his flesh hand coming up to wipe at his eyes.

“Babe, it’s going to take a lot to scare me away, and we _will_ be talking about this in the morning, but if you still want me here, we are going to get back in that bed, you’re going to let me run my fingers through your hair, and I’m going to talk about art until you fall asleep, where hopefully you will stay for the rest of the night.”

Shiro looked up, his eyes meeting Lance’s. “I’d really like that.” Lance saw the tears in his eyes, but couldn’t hold back a smile when he saw purple paint smeared across his scar. Lance crawled across the floor and sat next to his boyfriend, leaning against the wall. He reached out a hand and wiped away the dash of paint, wiping away Shiro’s tears with it. Shiro raised his flesh arm to catch Lance’s hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing the palm of his hand gently.

Matt came back into the room and sat down in front of Shiro, silently holding the glass of water out for him. Shiro dropped Lance’s hand and grabbed the glass, sipping it slowly under the watching eyes of his best friend and his boyfriend. When the glass was empty, Matt took back the glass and set it on the nightstand.

“Better?” He asked.

“Yeah, actually,” Shiro pushed himself up off the floor and eased himself into bed, Lance sliding in next to him.

Matt took that as his cue to leave, grabbing the glass and leaving the room, calling out behind him, “Goodnight!”

“’Night,” Lance called after him.

Shiro rested his head on his pillow, looking up at Lance, who was supporting himself on his elbows. “I believe you promised to play with my hair and tell me about art?”

Lance laughed softly, but lay down next to Shiro, facing him. He lifted his left hand and caressed Shiro’s cheek. His nails scratched softly against Shiro’s scalp when he got to his hair, combing through the short strands. Shiro shut his eyes at the contact, his lips parting slightly as he sighed, the exhaustion of his flashback finally weighing on him.

Lance hummed, racking his brain for a story to tell. “The High Renaissance artist Donatello was commissioned to make a work of art for one of the guilds in Florence, so he carved a St. George,” he began. “It was so expertly crafted, that George’s facial expression changes depending on where you stand. From one side, he looks brave, ready to go off into battle to fight for his country, which was fitting, since back then Italy was a bunch of smaller countries that kept fighting, so Florence was always under attack. But from the other side, George looks terrified at the prospect of going to war.”

Shiro’s breathing evened out, his face relaxing as he finally fell asleep.

It’s like the entire piece is saying ‘always be vigilant, but also remember it’s okay to be afraid’,” Lance continued. “Shiro, you don’t always have to be on top of things.” Lance dropped his voice to a nearly silent whisper, not ready to openly share all his thoughts with the world. “You’re allowed to have breakdowns and cry and be afraid, and it doesn’t make you any less brave or any less important to me. I know I can’t do much to help you, since this is a war of your own that only you can fight, but I promise I’ll be here as long as you want me to be, and I will spend every moment I have to cheer you on and help pick you up when you’re down. I can’t do much, but I can be there for you, Shiro.”

Shiro didn’t react to Lance’s promise, but snored softly in response. Lance smiled softly, leaning in close to Shiro to press his lips against the other man’s cheek. He pulled back, removing his hand from Shiro’s hair as he settled into the covers. He smiled softly, taking in the relaxed expression on Shiro’s face, content with the hope his boyfriend would get through the rest of the night peacefully.

Lance closed his eyes, the image of his boyfriend sleeping seared into his mind, replacing the image of a panicked Shiro that had been burned into his head after seeing the other man break down. Lance sighed softly, a quiet “I’m not going anywhere” releasing into the air. No, Lance was not going to go anywhere.

The morning would bring a serious talk between the two of them, to discuss Shiro’s PTSD and how Lance could help. Lance would request joining a session with Shiro’s therapist so he could be as prepared as Matt, but for now, Lance was just happy his boyfriend was safe and with him.

**Author's Note:**

> The [sculpture](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11288581) Lance talks about is one of my favorites, and I had to put it in here since it's an art au, so. 
> 
> My tumblr is [shir-oh-no](https://shir-oh-no.tumblr.com/), where I occasionally post some stuff about this series that I don't think will make it into a specific story.


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